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Cisco Catalyst Center vs. Cisco Secure Network Analytics

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Catalyst Center

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ACisco Catalyst Center provides an intent-based platform for managing enterprise networks across campus, branch, and edge environments. It combines automation, analytics, and assurance to streamline IT operations, improve security posture, and reduce manual tasks. With integratedAI/ML-driven insights, policy-based controls, and end-to-end visibility across wired and wireless infrastructures, Catalyst Center empowers IT teams toproactively detect issues, enforce compliance, and accelerate…N/A

    Cisco Secure Network Analytics

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ACisco Stealthwatch is a network behavior analysis product based on technology acquired by Cisco with its Lancope acquisition in 2015.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco Catalyst CenterCisco Secure Network Analytics
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Catalyst CenterCisco Secure Network Analytics
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Catalyst CenterCisco Secure Network Analytics
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    We were using scipts and home grown templates before
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    We use both of them.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    It's not comparable with DNA. I don't know id any product exists that is comparable with DNA. DNA is a complete solution, not only a AAA server.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    Cisco Prime, for example, is similar in that you have information about the network. Both applications can monitor the network, client, issues, etc.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    Se espera con esto tener mas control y visibilidad de acceso a los recursos

    With DNA Center it is expected to have more control and visibility of access to resources
    Incentivized
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Secure Network Analytics
    While other platforms such as Nagios and Solarwinds NTA provide visibility of the traffic, it either (*) does not provide API/programmatic way to pull the data to other platforms or (*) does not interface with secondary security systems to report on malicious traffic activity. …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    306 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    12 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    90%
    Delivers good value for the price
    245 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    319 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    12 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    83%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    195 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    229 Answers
    92%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco Catalyst CenterCisco Secure Network Analytics
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Cisco Meraki Dashboard
    Score9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
    Score7.7 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Catalyst CenterCisco Secure Network Analytics
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.4
    (343 ratings)
    9.5
    (14 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.9
    (9 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    7.9
    (19 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.7
    (33 ratings)
    7.9
    (2 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Catalyst CenterCisco Secure Network Analytics
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Would recommend Cisco Catalyst Center to medium to large scale organizations that have many cookie-cutter sites and the resources to properly provision all their devices. I would not recommend to teams that do not have a strong network engineering team that can navigate the various intricacies of the platform.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    Few products operate off the Netflow or RAP/SPAN traffic versus the endpoint. Of those products, many operate from the aggregate traffic of uplinks/downlinks, whereas Secure Network Analytics focuses on viewing all traffic to give per-endpoint comprehensive data analytics. SNA is a great product for network visibility and detection, and to preserve that focus, other options such as remediation or quarantined are deferred to other products in the security ecosystem. SNA uses Machine Learning models to determine traffic behavioral compliance, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it mitigates zero day attacks changing traffic patterns, but conversely, it requires training to know acceptable traffic patterns. Unfortunately, many adopters of SNA do not spend the time giving it the user input and so the ML models never gets the correct weights and parameters to work from.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • Again, the ease of use of the APIs and the API Explorer provides the tools needed to write these custom workflows that allow us to do a lot of the automation we’re doing now, saving hundreds of hours by using those tools.
    • The product is very intuitive, and there is a lot of support out there in the DevNet community to help with that.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • A silent tool.
    • A great way to get visibility of all the conversations of the network.
    • Easy to find out the internal and the external threats.
    • Easy to track performance.
    • Network monitoring is very easy to understand and control.
    • Attacks can be easily detected along with encrypted traffic.
    • Historic records of the attack and reports make it even better.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • Within its Tasks - Audit, it can sometimes allow plaintext data, including passwords, to be seen. There should be functionality to detect password usage and appropriately obfuscate the data.
    • Occasionally, Catalyst Center does not sync changes properly within templates, which requires deleting and reconfiguring the template version. Better processes here would be beneficial.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • Some of the jobs can be difficult to setup until you know how they were designed
    • Unless coupled with other Cisco products, you may not get all of the information you would like to have
    • If you have a network that already has many issues it may take a lot of time to see the value in the product; it would take time to weed everything which this product will detect for you to use it to find that needle in the haystack
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    I think new products are often "half-baked" or over hyped when they release, as was the case with DNAC. We were well ahead of the curve in acquiring it. But as it has matured it is now a fantastic addition to our infrastructure. I think we are easing into a stage where it is hard to envision a large organization NOT having Catalyst Center in place. If for nothing outside of the mapping and troubleshooting aspects; using it as a "source of truth".
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a fantastic tool, but does require some setup and upkeep which may turn off smaller IT Security teams. However, once all the flows are set up and the product is functioning with the proper rules, the insight into your network is fantastic. For us, the product has a significant ROI and will be a product we keep up on.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cisco
    Cisco DNA Center is going to help us in security, simplicity and ease of administration. Cisco DNA Center is complete management and control platform that simplifies and streamlines network operations. Cisco DNA Center offers a single dashboard for every core function in your network. With this platform, IT can become more nimble and respond to changes and challenges faster and more intelligently.
    Read full review
    Cisco
    Strong and complete tool which gives comprehensive methods to discover cyber security incidents and prevent data leakage. In case of common use of Cisco StealthWatch and Cisco ISE, you will receive [the] ability [to] not just discover cyber security incidents but also dynamically respond to them. This makes StealthWatch one of most valuable products through[out] [the] whole Cisco Security product portfolio.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    I would rate Cisco Secure Network Analytics’ availability as 8 out of 10. The platform is highly stable and reliable, with users reporting minimal downtime and consistent performance once the system is properly deployed and configured.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    El soporte de CISCO DNA Center es muy bueno, responden a mis dudas pero no he tenido oportunidad de reportar un incidente o determinar un tiempo de respuesta critico. The support of CISCO DNA Center is very good, they answer my questions, but I have not had the opportunity to report an incident or determine a critical response time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    Overall winner because it exceeds our expectations by answering all our requirements and at the same time empowers our operations thru other built-in capabilities it has. Visibility is a key to security operations and Cisco StealthWatch really gives us a magnifying glass to check all logs in the network for threat intelligence and threat hunting.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Cisco
    It was informative, but the labs were not available long enough for us to get intimately familiar with CCNA before it was closed. The course instructor was well informed and got us as close to ready as she could.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    Implementation of the product can be tedious, especially fine tuning its rules to customize it to your environment. However, after that is done, CSNA is a very useful and flexible product that would enhance the security posture of any corporate network.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Cisco Catalyst Centeris basic zero-touch provisioning out of the box. You just rack and stack the switches, patch 'em in, and the controller pushes the config automatically. No need to console into every single box or spend hours script-running over CLI.The AI-driven assurance and telemetry are top-tier. Instead of getting flooded with useless syslog alerts when a link drops, it correlates the telemetry data to give you proactive health checks. It literally pinpoints wireless anomalies and bandwidth chokepoints before the users even start opening tickets.It handles fabric microsegmentation like a boss through SD-Access and TrustSec. You can easily enforce group-based policies right at the hardware level. It drops IoT gear, guests, and corporate traffic into their own secure buckets dynamically, without you having to manage a trillion messy VLANs and ACLs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    I wasn't involved in the decision-making when it happened. It was a couple of years ago, but I can't think of the vendor's name. They used to be here at Cisco Live. But it was another NetFlow vendor, but they were strictly NetFlow and all they did was just a net flow and the Secure Network Analytics has like some of the security anomaly detection stuff built into it. And that was kind of a deciding factor of wanting more of the security focus of the net flow. The net flow was a bonus, but the security stuff was what we were looking for.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • I have used it for upgrading devices, and it's does a great job at that, however out operations team for whatever reason has not adopted the feature.
    • Overall it feels like Cisco Catalyst Center has been huge waste of time. I feel like my time would be better spent on other projects and looking at other products and tools
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • It is a little pricey - in my organization, with budget cuts, I eventually had to replace it with an open source product (NTOP). While it works well for visibility, it simply isn't the same. If you can afford it, don't bother looking anywhere else - just get it.
    • Being able to detect, pivot out, and remmediate from one console was awesome.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Cisco Catalyst Center Screenshots

    Screenshot of AIOpsScreenshot of BaselinesScreenshot of PoliciesScreenshot of HealthScreenshot of Network HierarchyScreenshot of PoE